On behalf of the Harvard Costume Contest Committee, I invite you to participate once again in one of debate's most beautiful, enjoyable, and community-building experiences: the Harvard Halloween costume contest.

This year, like last year, the top placing costumes will be rewarded with handsome prizes.

Unlike last year, we are not having the pre-registration wiki.

Rules:

1. Your costume can be just about anything with the one important caveat that nudity does not count as a costume. The inevitably present tourists asking to watch debate rounds on that day will be terrified and you will be photographed. And disqualified.

2. You must wear your costume on the Sunday of the tournament for the morning and a reasonable part of the afternoon in order that you are seen by other contestants and potential voters. If the committee never sees your costume, you are unlikely to be victorious.

3. Wearing your costume on a day that is not Sunday will not help you.

4. Votes and nominations will take place on that Sunday at the ballot table/help table. One Michael Suo will most likely be running this table. You need to nominate the individual and what their costume is -- note: this does not have to rely on their own description of the costume.

5. Awards will be announced before the speaker awards at the assembly.

Someone should show up wearing a three-piece suit. He'd be masquerading as a 1960s debater.

William Shatner has gone out trick-or-treating wearing a William Shatner mask. That's not as original as you might guess, as Dishonest John did the same thing in the closing sequence of the Beany and Cecil Show.

Dover (New Hampshire) High School debate team, 1967-1970Dover High School Debate Coach, 1970-1971University of New Hampshire debate team, 1970 (when we still spoke like human beings)University of New Hampshire debate team, 1980-1981 (and when we didn't)UNH assistant debate coach, 1980-1981